


lagged & nagged

by RokettoMusashi



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Caretaker Reversal, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, IT'S ANOTHER DP146 FIC, Post-DP146, Shinou-chihou | Sinnoh Region (Pokemon), Sickfic, Whump, i guess, i was kind of mean in this one sfjdghlzdgf, its MY sickfic and i get to choose the symptoms, the outline for this was called 'a third dp146 fic? really bitch?', you can't stop me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RokettoMusashi/pseuds/RokettoMusashi
Summary: Turns out that barely sleeping, having little to eat, stressing yourself into a coma over being on a contest stage for the first time, and being physically unable to stop hugging your sick girlfriend aren't exactly ideal for one's health.--A very, very, VERY arguable sequel topressed, distressed, digressed.
Relationships: Kojirou | James & Musashi | Jessie & Rocket-dan Nyarth | Team Rocket Meowth, Kojirou | James/Musashi | Jessie
Comments: 14
Kudos: 51





	lagged & nagged

**Author's Note:**

> i miss dp146. i have this rule where i can only watch dp146 when im sick because i like to make my life harder. it really works out for me because it makes watching dp146 extra special. except right now i live in a bubble of disinfectant so i don't get to watch dp146. 
> 
> here's a story i wrote. its about dp146.
> 
> fellow ao3 user [StardustFandoms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StardustFandoms/pseuds/StardustFandoms) beat me to this idea. i was gonna finish and upload this months ago but elected not to because it felt rude lmao. but it's been a few months since they published their own take on it so hopefully it's chill now. you should read [their story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797868) also. when i saw it i might have gone apeshit and i'm pretty sure i've read it about 80 times since then.
> 
> if you read all my sickfics i would love to study you. thank you for... doing that? wow. i love you.

Jessie leans back in her seat, a bored sort of irritation stuck on her brow. The fuzzy view on the monitor ahead hardly makes for sound entertainment— _if you look to your right, team, you’ll see a ‘hole’ lotta dirt! And if you look to your left, you guessed it, more dirt!_ —and though it’s not been long at all, she feels like she’s been waiting on her targets for hours.

The structure above is hardly notable—crumbling to nothing, its chalky bleachers a sad imprint of the glory the colosseum might have been, once upon a time. The whole town is utterly _drab,_ if she’s being honest. How they managed to fit a contest hall in a place like Lilypad is anyone’s guess. Jessie yawns loudly, announcing to her team exactly where her patience is it.

“‘Ay, James, ya sure ya saw ‘em headin’ dis way?” Meowth says for her. “What business do da twoihps even have in an empty arena dat’s fallin’ apart?”

James doesn’t look at his teammate when he responds. “I don’t know, Meowth. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“We been waitin’!” the cat says. “What if dey ain’t comin? Dontcha t’ink it’s smarter to resoihface ‘n’ reroute?”

James sighs, sounding utterly resigned. “If you’d _like_ to risk blowing our cover early, be my guest.”

His head is resting against nearly steepled hands, eyes just a hair away from being shut entirely. Jessie narrows her icy blues, trying to take in what’s getting at her partner—there’s an irritation buried under his tone, but the bite and sarcasm that so often comes alongside it is lacking. Her expression twists, unsure at what’s going on with him.

“Hey, what’s with you?” she asks, sounding oddly curious. James jolts, a little, straightening his back before answering.

“Nothing, Jess. I... could have slept better, is all,” he says, errantly rubbing at his temple.

Jessie raises an eyebrow. “One of your headaches?”

He refuses to meet her eyes, which is typical, but the uncharacteristically intense reluctance hiding in the gesture makes Jessie’s curiosity fire off harder. James was often the first to complain when that _was_ the case, and she wonders what’s got him so quiet now. She chalks it up to focus on the stakeout at hand—collectively, their easily-distracted core had a tendency to snap to it at the strangest times.

“I’ll live,” James says, and then confirms her suspicions—“Hold on. I think I hear footfalls.”

“Give those to me,” Jessie demands, taking the headphones from him.

 _Pride or no pride,_ she muses, _if he’s got a migraine brewing then it’s best to not exacerbate it._

James hands them to her with little resistance besides a nervousness she doesn’t notice buried in his eyes. She pulls them on and uselessly presses herself up against the mech’s wall, as if the action has any bearing on the quality of the pickup. When she flips the far side of them out, James is quick to press himself up against it, and Meowth follows suit and scrambles up to his shoulder to do the same.

It's quiet—agonizingly so—and the three of them close their eyes as they lean against each other, desperate to make out the voices and ensure they’ve got their mark. The audio’s scratchy syllables for a few moments, tones Jessie can’t make out over the hum of the electricity inside and the incessant sound of James sniffling in her free ear. Every time she comes close to zeroing in on a familiar cadence, she’s distracted by his wavering inhales that build and seem to peter into nothing.

She knows that were she to turn, she’d see the stupid look he always got pre-sneeze, the hazy expression on his face as he bit back the buzzing sensation stuck in his head. Jessie makes a mental note to herself— _threaten to stop buying this man antihistamines if he’s not going to remember them_ —but is distracted long before she can verbalize her irritation by the distinct cry of a pikachu above ground.

“Jackpot,” she whispers, grinning mischievously.

“Why we whisperin’?” Meowth says, matching her tone. “Let’s pounce already!”

“Wait, shouldn’t we…” James murmurs, angling his head. “...I don’t know, give it a moment? Wait for a twerpish comment we can ‘yes, and’ with a motto?”

Jessie regards him out of the corner of her eye, wondering how he picks what days to care about his job. A dart board, perhaps? Did he pick up one of those fancy watches with the coin toss app when she wasn't looking? She can see even in her peripheral the contradictory bags under his eyes, grits her teeth and sharpens her tone as she presses on.

“We’ll save it for a day we can actually _hear_ their frivolity,” she says. “This one’s to be quick and easy.”

“Hear hear!” Meowth agrees, throwing a paw in the air. 

Jessie turns back to her partner—staring him head-on, this time. He sluggishly, halfway meets her eyes, the foggy way he sometimes does when he’s running on embers. Working in contradiction always, Jessie palms his chin in a gesture stuck somewhere between ferocity and tenderness, angling his head up to her piercing gaze. She flashes a smile, intent to inspire him.

“Today _is_ the day,” she promises. “Look alive, James.”

 _Right,_ he agrees wordlessly, shutting his eyes in preparation, rehearsed rhymes resting at the back of his throat. _Look alive._

Fighting the urge to fall asleep then and there, beneath the quiet earth, James swivels back over to his seat and grabs the robot’s reins. 

* * *

“The only reason they caught up to us so quickly was because _you_ half-assed the decoy plan!”

“Dey was movin’ ahead of us! Da window t’strike was dere!”

“We were _underground,_ Meowth, what were they going to do?!”

“Dey coulda iced us wit' dat monferno’s Dig attack! Or did ya leave ya brain at home an’ forget it does dat?”

“At least I _have_ a brain to leave!”

James lags behind, arms swinging weakly at his chest the way they so often did at the end of a long day. The sun is just short of halfway across the sky, though, and while he’s barely paying attention to his teammates arguing, he knows the feeling hanging above the lot of them well— _failure stings most this early in the day._

It’s a toss up, he ponders wearily, where they can go from here. An early blast-off more often than not means regroup, rebuild, _revenge_ , and most days he’s more than happy to put his wits together alongside them and come back twice as strong.

The wind picks up, pulling clouds over the sun. James shudders, palms at his arms.

“An’ why ya pickin’ on me-owth, huh? James was da one navigatin’!”

Jessie stops, blinks, switches gears. The way she so often does, the way James loves and loathes. How often she’ll be charging forward, determined to see something to its end, how often she’ll immediately change course the second a new path reveals itself to her. James had been so quiet, so palatable, so unbothered, she’d nearly forgotten he was there in the commotion of it all.

She’s mid-stride when Meowth says it, and when she stops walking the party stops with her. James has to scramble not to run into her, his eyes fixed firmly on the dirt road back to the cabin.

“James _was_ the one manning the decoy,” she says, ominously, pulling brambles from her hair. The sentence doesn’t have an end, and for once James’ anxious heart doesn’t have the energy to fill one in. He's desperate to use his voice sparingly, to not give away the weakened tones he knows are creeping into it more and more as the day goes on.

“It... wasn’t my best,” he responds, simply.

Jessie narrows her eyes again, hands on her hips as she studies him. He’s… _off_ , she’s known that since morning, but there’s something buried deeper he seems to be holding in, refusing to verbalize. The headaches happen often enough, the insomnia even more so—James isn’t a person who takes particularly good care of himself, and she’s hardly one to point fingers, working herself to the bone right alongside him. 

He’s far too quiet, his constant fire flickered out. She’d expect him to be short with her, snippy, the way he always is when he’s too bothered by his lack of vitality to put up with her attitude. The silence actually _worries_ her— _where are his dramatics?_

“Seriously, what’s your problem?” she asks for the second time today, and James jerks almost forcefully away from her gaze, angling his arm in a way that makes Jessie raise an eyebrow.

“I told you, I’m just tired, I-I—” she watches him take an unsteady breath, tiny tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. “S-Sorry, give me a minute—”

James ducks to the side with a mighty sneeze—one that bends him in half, tears slipping down his cheeks. He’s always loud, but this one is louder, desperate and rough and _painful-sounding_ , and its timing stops Jessie in her tracks and clicks the last piece right into place. Oh. _Oh._

Right, that makes sense.

He’s wiping at his eyes with a gloved palm in the aftermath, and Meowth’s at his feet smoothing out the fur on his tail, stood straight up from the startle. 

“Dere’s our drama queen,” he quips, crossing his arms. “I’d say bless ya, but I ain’t sure ya deserve it after scarin’ one o’ my nine lives outta me.”

Jessie nudges Meowth into silence with the side of her foot, her piercing gaze on James softened, now. He still can’t bring himself to look toward her, unsure what it is he’s so afraid of. They were set to take off for Sunyshore in the morning, bright and early as they could manage. While the boys had lamented leaving the lavish cabin they were nestled in—an expense they realized was pure serendipity when it became clear Jessie wasn’t feeling her best—their leader was eager to make up for missed time and charge forward as soon as possible.

"That... didn't sound good," Jessie notes, something soft tiptoeing into her tone.

There’s sorries on James’ tongue that can’t push past his instinct to fade into the background, ones he knows Jessie won’t accept anyway. Instead, he keeps his eyes low, away from the sunlight that makes his head pulse harder. 

“—let’s focus on more important matters at hand,” James pivots, his voice sounding awfully strained, _has it been like that all day?_

Jessie crosses her arms, wondering what kind of game he thinks he’s playing.

* * *

_It’s cold in the cabin when James is pulled awake, the sun barely having begun its ascent across Lilypad. It peeks over the trees, spills in through the windows, paints everything around it in a dull shade of blue that dares other tones to exist within it. Mornings in Sinnoh are always far too chilly, and he curses himself for not turning the heat higher, or being blessed with a body small enough to fit beneath the kotatsu alongside their third._

_James has fallen asleep holding Jessie nearly every night since they’ve met, with no exceptions being made unless she demands so. He wakes up with his arms wrapped around her back, his chin balanced delicately on her head while she clings hard to his undershirt with a shaking hand. She coughs, and coughs, and coughs—breath wheezing, sharp inhales, lungs desperate to get rid of everything, necessary oxygen included. He can feel her hacking breaths hot against his chest, a secondary heartbeat he hardly minds._

_James tightens his grip around her weakly, closing his eyes in a bid to fall back asleep. He hasn’t the energy to get up just yet, elects instead to run his fingers through Jessie’s long hair, infusing the gesture with all the soothing power he can muster. Her fit peters out almost as suddenly as it comes, trailing off into soft sniffles as she bites back the tears that spring up in her eyes. James blindly feels his way to her clammy cheek, wiping one away as it falls._

_He makes a weak moan of protest when she pries herself from his arms, creaks his eyes open and struggles not to shut them when she has the audacity to raise her head, crawling upward and balanced on her forearms. Meowth doesn’t stir from under the kotatsu, wordlessly taunting them from within his sweet, sweet dreams._

_“What time is it?” Jessie croaks, looking around blearily. “I-It’s morning? I should start getting ready—”_

_She swings herself upward in a single fluid motion, bringing her arms off their supportive rest on the futon. She’s sitting up only for a moment before her strength wavers, the room spinning wildly around her. Jessie brings a palm to her stuffy head, fingers pressed flat against her eyes in an attempt to will away the pressure bursting from within. There’s snowflakes falling on every side of her, and the biting winds whip them into sharpened crystals on her skin long before she’s able to relish in their presence._

_She shivers violently, teeth pressed together. Everything._ Everything _aches._

_“Why…” Jessie whimpers. “...don’t I feel any better?”_

_She says it with the same sort of overdramatic exhaustion James is used to, but he can hear the helpless tones buried far beneath the surface. He hasn’t seen her ill like this in a long while, and is almost worried he’s forgotten how to look after her. The thought is absurd, of course—the both of them were practically born to take care of one another, hand in shaking hand._

_James fights the sleepy haze to sit up beside her, wrapping himself around her waist like a touch-starved octillery and leaning his head lazily on her shoulder. His partner utters a small noise at the gesture, melts into him almost immediately._

_“The sun’s not even up yet, Jess,” he protests. “Rest with me a little longer.”_

_She resigns herself to it quickly, slumping back down toward her pillow with James in tow. He wants to tell her to throw all talk of contests out the window, to take a few days off lest her cold turn into something far less manageable, but knows Jessie’s a unique creature who responds to certain words in a certain order and absolutely nothing less. He’s a wordsmith, thankfully, well versed in her language, strange and beautiful though it is._

_Back in his arms where she’s content to be, Jessie thinks perhaps sleeping in isn’t so bad. Always the early riser, her team had known something was wrong a few days prior when she wasn’t awake with the sun. She’s been cursing it ever since, refusing to think about the idea that maybe it was her body’s way of saying she needed it. Now, she mostly just wants to stay curled up against James forever._

_Her bliss is ruined quickly when urge to sneeze crawls back up her throat, and she fights it with moisture dotting the corners of her eyes again, smearing icy imprints onto the pillow below. She hates the sneezing most of all—how difficult it is to make look elegant, how often it happens when she’s on the brink of drifting off, how everyone and their pokémon have a comment about how_ adoooorable _hers sound. Jessie doesn’t have time to cover properly when it sneaks up on her, making a mess of her hand as it’s limp and useless against her face._

 _They almost always come in threes when she’s sick, and the fourth and fifth and sixth catch her off guard. By the end of it, it’s become an_ event— _her eyes are shut tight from the force of it, her nose is pink and streaming. James never shies away, idiot that he is—instead, he holds tighter, rubbing circles into her back. He dabs at her face again, this time with his sleeve, and just this once she’s far too ill to care._

 _“I feel mbiserable,” Jessie says, torturously congested. “It’s goig to take mby edtire supply of codcealer to cover up how_ dead _I look!”_

 _James is still far too tired to want to use his words, and elects to press a kiss against her forehead instead. It’s both a comfort and a stealth tactic—he notes that she’s absolutely running a fever, and a nasty high one, at that._ That wasn’t there last night _, James thinks with a twist in his heart._

_“You’re beautiful as ever, Jess.”_

_The sigh that leaves her lips is so amorous it almost sickens her further. She wonders how her partner can spend so much time bumbling through life, only to stop precisely when it matters and say exactly what it is she wants to hear. James nuzzles himself downward from atop her crimson tangles, finally opens his eyes so she knows he’s telling the truth._

_“Are you positively certaid you wadt to keep cli'ging to mbe like a'd adolescedt aipom?” Jessie asks. “At this rate you’re just aski'g to be idfected yourself.”_

_James smiles, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek in an attempt to better gauge her temperature. He moves it to her jaw, her neck, so tender it almost makes more tears well up in her eyes. He’s looking at her like she truly is the most beautiful creature on earth, despite the heavy bags beneath her lidded blues and the knots in her hair and the red splotches cropping up above her upper lip._

_“You know of my constitution and its steely reputation,” James says with a yawn, and it’s her turn to reach up and wipe an errant tear from his eye. “When’s the last time you saw me take ill?”_

_The yawn catches, and Jessie fights back her own, feeling the exhaustion deep beneath her muscles._

_“Right, right,” she says. “That old sayi'g about fools ndot catchi'g colds.”_

_“Something like that,” he shuts his eyes again. “I_ am _quite the fool for you.”_

_He punctuates it with his signature goofy smile, and Jessie thinks she’ll die before she ever says aloud how adorable she thinks it is. The idea of contagion so rarely matters to him—it makes sense that they’d share illness just as they shared all else. Jessie rolls her eyes with a groan and draws herself closer to him, blaming the fluttering in her chest on the virus entirely, and intent to get some rest before she’s up to pocket her ribbon._

* * *

James is shoved far into a corner of the cabin, teetering on the precipice of another sneeze he’s sure will let loose a metaphorical hurricane into the small room were he to let it surface. His team has a fairly good track record of only noticing him when they want something, one he’s hoping to use his advantage while he keeps quiet and fights off the building urge to give in. Jessie hasn’t said much of anything since they’ve gotten back, perhaps to his advantage, but there’s a look in her eye that’s different from what he’s used to, setting his anxious heart ablaze.

“—gotta account fa how behind schedule we is after ya, uh... _rest_ day.”

He flutters long lashes, squinting his eyes shut with the hopes that the lack of light might do anything to help. An attempt to distract himself with thoughts of anything besides the itch crawling up his throat only brings him the compulsive repetition of all the regrets that lead him to this point—of cuddling up to Jessie the entire time she’d been ill, of never thinking once to wipe down a single surface in the cabin, of wearing the clothes she’d been practicing appeals in all night before crawling into bed a fevered mess, of getting cocky behind the veil of his seemingly bulletproof immune system.

“We’re hardly behind. I would’ve just been at the contest if I wasn’t laid up with a plague. Much like all else, my timing was impeccable.”

James feels the tickle burrow further, and when his lips part slightly and the telltale haze creeps into his eyes, he presses his tongue hard against his gums, swallowing thickly. _Alright,_ he thinks to himself. _Logically, I’m going to lose this battle eventually._

“Ya make it sound like ya just picked a day and went for it! If yous can get sick at da team’s convenience, how’s about doin’ it when ya got less goin’ on so’s me ‘n’ Jimmy ain’t gotta do ya work for ya?”

_Maybe I can… just…_

The thought is brought to an abrupt halt. In the midst of it, James sucks in a rigid breath—one that catches, and builds, and undoes any and all attempts to keep the storm at bay. As his final fail-safe, he manages to stifle the sneeze, jolting forward with little more than a tight-sounding squeak into his curled fingers. There’s a moment of silence after it, where his form softens and his eyes find their way open once more. His teammates stop their conversation.

“Fuck’s sake,” Meowth utters simply, dragging paw-pads across his eyes.

“Listen,” James attempts to protest through his foggy thoughts.

“‘Kay, so, scratch dat,” Meowth says, throwing his paws up in the air. “We’s _super_ behind schedule!”

“We’re behind nothing,” James retorts weakly. “I’m right as r—”

He pulls off to the side to stifle another sneeze, and then another, each sounding like more of an ordeal than the last. Jessie rolls her eyes, finally speaking up.

“If you don’t let those out you’re never going to stop, you know.”

She watches again with narrowed eyes as he opens his mouth to offer a quip that doesn’t have the will to materialize. His nose twitches and crinkles and he sneezes again, this time with the throat-scraping, body-jerking dramatics she’s used to from her partner. Jessie crosses her arms after a beat, looking far too satisfied when he meets her eyes again.

“See? Beautiful silence,” she says. “ _Bless_ you.”

“Do _not_ bless him!” Meowth cuts in, flicking an ear. “Why dontcha save da well wishes for da two of us who’s gonna hafta figure out how ta make it ta Sunyshore widdout fallin’ behind?”

“Change of plans,” Jessie says with little hesitation. “James won’t be fit to travel anywhere.”

“That’s... really not necessary,” James says, inching closer to his team. “Look, I’m fine, really—”

They ignore him entirely, pressing on as though he’s not even there. “There’s the matter of losing the twerp trail, for sure…”

“Jimmy bounces back pretty fast, he’ll prob'ly be feelin' bettah in a day or two.”

“True, true, but what about—”

“Would you two _stop?_ ” James shouts, wincing at the pain it shoots through his already torn-up throat. “We don’t need to change any plans just because I _might_ be a little under the weather.”

“Please,” Jessie says. “It was _my_ cold first. I know far better than you how dreadful it’s about to be.”

The sentiment momentarily breaks James out of his reflexive need to argue, pulling him back to his very selective right mind. He’s used to squabbles with his team, of course, and special treatment when one or more of them were ill or injured wasn’t typical. Jessie seemed to be picking different battles today, though, ones that seemed strange even for her. There’s a softness to her James can’t place, one that’s different from the buried, bittersweet shade she usually shows affection in. 

_Dreadful_ is a good word for it, in any case. She’d started just the same—with a burning pressed against her eyes and a rawness stuck inside her throat, before it quickly and furiously dissolved into—

James shudders fiercely, squeezing his eyes shut. _Right._ The chills, the fever, the congestion that’s already turning into a migraine. Okay, so maybe he _can’t_ manage far on foot like this, but—

“And _here_ we go,” Jessie says, suddenly present with a thermometer she’s seemingly pulled out of nowhere. “I’m taking your temperature.”

“You are not!” James protests. “Disinfect that thing before you shove it at me, it’s still got your germs all over it!”

“I’m positive you’re teeming with them already, James,” she puts a hand on her hip. “Open up.”

“Aw,” Meowth comments, growing playfully resigned. “Indirect kiss.”

James stands before she can zero in on him, turning away with a ferocity that’s far too defensive for someone insisting he’s fine. Their third flicks his ear irritably, entirely unsure what’s gotten into _either_ of his companions. 

It’s not like James to do anything other than whine when he doesn’t feel good, and it’s not like Jessie to put aside an objective for any reason short of the world’s immediate end. Yet here they are, acting suspiciously out of character, leaving the cat to do nothing besides lean back and watch the trainwreck in the hopes it’ll sort itself out.

“I need a shower,” James says in a tone that leaves little room for anyone to question him.

Jessie’s still got dirt on her face and scrapes across her knees from their landing, too laser focused on figuring out what to do next that she’s forgotten she’s a creature of vanity entirely. Meowth expects her to be teeth bared when James reminds her the bathroom _exists—the hell you do, there’s still blast-off in my hair—_ but she’s just as strangely quiet as she’s been all day when James gets up and walks away, her bite not there at all.

 _Maybe the girl’s still sick herself,_ the normal-type thinks with a side-eye.

As soon as James shuts the door, its sound gives him permission to feel it—everything he’s been keeping under wraps, everything he’s been holding in, exactly how exhausted he is. His back against the door, he wants to sink to the floor and stay comatose there for a while, to come undone where no one can see him, to let it all pass through him so he can be done with it and move on. He exhales a shaky breath, crackling and wheezy, and winces hard at the sound of it. A second catches in his throat, and he dives to turn the shower on and muffle the coughs clawing their way out of him.

 _It wasn't this bad this morning._ _When did it get this bad?_

Every tremor is an ordeal, piercing through his skull, deep under his skin, scraping his throat to nothing and tearing his voice away. He’s blazing, and the room smears and wavers in the heat of the flames as it spits and snaps around him. Everything’s too hot. Yanking off his glove in a tepid gesture, James presses a hand against his forehead, staring back at his reflection in the mirror, sickly pale and glassy-eyed. 

_Maybe it’s fine,_ he’d told himself in the contest hall’s green room when he noticed his throat starting to ache. It was a lot of talking, a lot of throwing his voice, a lot of trying to match Jessie’s lilting tones and bubbly laughs.

 _Maybe it’s fine,_ he’d told himself when he got home that afternoon and collapsed in his uniform, every muscle in his body feeling like it was weighed down beneath the heaviest metal sheet imaginable. It was an exhausting day. It was normal to be knocked out after something so exciting and new.

 _Maybe it’s fine,_ he’d told himself when he’d woken up that morning with a headache already settled in, his nose running like a faucet despite the agonizing pressure that insisted he was blocked up tight. That’s a Sinnoh springtime for you, pollen in the air and puffs of cotton dotting the forest floors.

 _Maybe it’s fine,_ he’d told himself when Jessie swiped the last of their lunch for herself, and he had nary a complaint on his tongue, his stomach hardly feeling up to much of anything. By that point in the day, he was too tired to come up with a justification for why. He focused his energy into doing his _job,_ pushing past the fog in his head to at least make some headway on the Pikachu Plan.

It’s too hot in the cabin. Just yesterday morning it was freezing, now the heat crawls under James’ skin, inescapable. The water is cold, hammering down beside him, a steady rhythm that’s inviting and safe. He doesn’t even register its bite as he dives in, doesn't have the mind to bother getting out of his clothes, fearful and desperate to chase the fire away with all he is.

_Jessie already spent a day cooped up because of me._

His breathing’s unsteady, the hazy seaglass of the stall dreamlike around him even without steam painting pictures across it. 

_She shouldn’t have to deal with another just because I wasn’t smart and got myself sick, too._

A switch flips, and the fire dies. It’s a blizzard around James, now, the cold water like glass against his back. The fire’s gone, but he knows it persists—it’s a trick of the mind, a trick of the body. He steels himself, envisions in his mind's eye the act of standing tall despite it. It's never that easy.

_I’ll get rid of this silly little temperature I’m running and we’ll head off tomorrow morning._

He’s cold. He’s really, _really_ cold. Colder than a sickness has ever made him feel before. Cold like there’s an icicle lodged in his heart, freezing every drop of blood in his body. His heart is hammering in his ears, near deafening in its warning song and growing louder by the second. James sucks in a breath, bites back a hacking cough, his hand against the glass wall.

_I’ll… I’m going to—_

White frames the corners of his vision, so often the kindest colour, the most optimistic. It envelops everything else, covers the world around him in fresh-fallen snow. _Something’s wrong_ , he thinks, pawing at the tap as a feeling of dread completely overtakes him. _Something’s wrong._

_Everything’s so heavy._

The world is swirling watercolour around him before it fades to nothing.

* * *

James wakes up far more kindly than he had gone out, slowly and in a room that’s dark and quiet, save for the buzz of the kotatsu. There’s a weight on his chest that’s thick and oppressive, and he feels like he’s pushing air through coffee straws when he tries to take a breath. He opens his eyes after a moment of resistance, and watches Jessie light up in the darkness.

She’s looking directly at him and nowhere else—her attention span, normally so fickle, quiets its racing mind to focus in on only him. Even in the black of the night, through his haze, he sees the way the emotions in her eyes shift and change like an unpolluted sea. Her words come before she can think to filter them, now and always.

“ _James!_ ” she calls with a song in her voice, before burying her fire for a moment. He watches her pull back, uncharacteristically shy.

“Eh… you… _do_ know where you are, yes?”

Wordlessly, James takes in the scenery, wondering if it’s a trick question. The cabin’s as it was when he left it—though Meowth is nowhere in sight, he notes. There’s a basin of water beside him and a myriad of other supplies left over from Jessie’s own sick day. The thermometer she’d been threatening him with hours ago is to his right alongside them, painting moisture onto its plastic casing and indicating that he’d lost that battle at some point while unconscious. He throws an arm over his eyes, groaning.

“So I’m guessing the spontaneous fainting hasn’t done anything for my case,” James says.

He hears Jessie let out a vocalization that can’t decide where it falls between laughter and tears and fury. She tries to erase the image from her mind—of him laying nearly motionless like that on the tile, clothes soaked through while he trembled. Of the way he screamed and kicked and clawed at her and Meowth when they grabbed him, fighting through tears. _Don’t touch me,_ he’d seethed at her, his eyes clouded over in an ice-cold fear she’d never seen before. _I’m not marrying you!_

“No, you complete _idiot_ ,” she can’t help but smile in relief before shoving his arm from his face. “Move.”

He complies, and she presses one palm to his forehead and the other to her own, studying the contrast best she can. It’s barely been an hour since she last checked his fever, but the nervous fluttering that’s been plaguing Jessie’s heart since morning seems to only waver when she pours its restless energy into this. Whatever _this_ is.

“Let’s try this again, James,” Jessie says. “How are you feeling?”

“Um…” he looks to her sheepishly, suddenly feeling like he’s a specimen again. “Sick.”

“Sick is _right_ , what am I going to do with you, you wretched thief?!” Her words sound biting, but Jessie’s smile stays. “Stealing that cold from me without a single _word._ I’m honestly sort of proud.”

There’s colour on her cheeks, a flush she can’t hide even in the darkness. James can’t discern its exact pigment or what it means, with his brain as foggy as it is, but he’s got a guess or two rattling around in there, making him wish he had the words to soothe it. He tries to sit up, to better meet her where she is—but the room spins around him and he struggles. Jessie’s arm is quick to catch him as he tumbles backward, and James almost wants to laugh at how quickly their roles reversed. He can see the same worry he’d worn for days painted all over the crease in her brow.

“Ah… sorry,” he says, realizing all at once he’s put her through all the same.

“Shut up,” Jessie says, still flustered. “You can beg my forgiveness when you’re feeling better.”

She pauses for a moment, tightening her hold on him, in the way she so often does when she’s feeling fiercely protective. 

“I’ll run you a bath,” she says, leaving no room for objection. “I do hope you’ll have half a mind for a warm one, this time.”

James considers this for a moment, and a violent shiver quiets his thoughts. She’s always two steps ahead of him, something that touches him deep in his heart. The attempt at a shower didn’t do much to wash off how sweaty and slimy and _disgusting_ James feels even still.

“That… sounds nice. Would you?”

Jessie’s hardly stopped smiling since James woke up. It’s such a contrast to what he expected of her, and he immediately feels guilty when he realizes. She pulls him up beside her and he leans into the gesture with ease, her strong arms holding him steady since the day they met and everyday thereafter. Even with the illness taking his right mind, his steps align with her own as they walk, beautiful synchronicity refusing to falter.

Jessie always runs the water a little too warm, something James is reminded of all at once as he’s nervously toeing his way in. Her back is to him—an empty gesture of respect, given how she’d already pried his soaking clothes off him mere hours ago—but even still, she knows his little whimpers are that of a child too scared to rip off a bandage.

“For the love of _evil_ , James, get in before you pass out again,” she says with her arms crossed, eyeing him over her shoulder. 

Trying to steel himself, he plunges a leg into the scalding waters, finding it’s not nearly as bad as he’d anticipated. Immediately, the chill crawling through his blood seems to subside a little, and he melts into the foamy surface, struggling not to drift off right there. The steam curls up into his sinuses and makes his nose run, and he’s too grateful to be embarrassed when Jessie’s at his side with a spare washcloth. She hands it to him wordlessly, averts her eyes far too politely as he’s mopping up his face with it.

The bath isn’t particularly luxurious, James thinks as he attempts to fit his lanky self into a comfortable position within it, but to have one at all is a comfort he’d forgotten as of late. The cabin was a lucky break—Lilypad was full of surprises, from its strange focus on transport by blimps, to its shockingly large contest hall, to its beautifully affordable cost on lodgings. Jessie had practically pirouetted through the door when she saw the TV, melted into the kotatsu for a long nap almost immediately after—all the while ignoring the boys’ warnings not to do so lest she catch cold and waving them off for spouting old wives’ tales. 

James is broken out of his ponderings when she tilts his head back, and he peers up at her with his doe-eyed gaze still foggy and light. She’s not looking directly at him while she palms warm water onto his sweat-slicked hair, and he takes her cue and closes his eyes, letting her hold him aloft. 

It hits him all at once, as Jessie’s running her nails through tangled lavender vines—the manicure she’d hoped to wear for the contest, chipping itself down. How often in his time alongside her that he’d catch the waver in her breath, the rasp in her voice, the way she suddenly shivered in the sun. A repeated refrain, _rely on me._ An exaggerated complaint was often all he and Meowth got before she waved it off and charged forward anyway, coiling James’ nerves into tightened knots. The unkind stranger living in his brain screams _hypocrite_ at him, and he’s too ill to keep his apologies in his head.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and Jessie works a soothing balm into his roots, trying not to roll her eyes and tell him to be quiet again. She wants to ask him if he knows how ridiculous he sounds, apologizing for something so out of his control, so clearly not ideal, _so completely not his—_

She stops her thoughts. Moments like this, when the lights are low and the stars are blinking outside, when nothing needs to exist beyond the family they’ve found in each other, compassion comes more easily. Even if she wanted her temper, she’s not sure where it’s sleeping, right now.

“I’ve no choice but to forgive you, I suppose,” Jessie humours him, this time. “Stop overthinking it. If you’d like to make it up to me you can focus on recovering.”

Her words are punctuated with quiet ripples as she pulls suds from his hair, her fingertips grazing him so gently he feels as though he’s dreaming. Jessie touches him as though he’ll break if she’s too rough, a courtesy she so rarely extends even to that which she adores with her whole heart, a courtesy James so rarely knows from anyone or anything. Everything Jessie loves comes out of it a little rustled, and it’s the first time since they were young that he can count her holding on with a lack of ferocity that trusts him not to escape.

“Jessie?”

“What?”

James is silent for a moment, the part of his brain responsible for filtering words to the liking of everyone around him chugging along at a fourth its usual speed. He abandons it entirely, growing impatient.

“Why… are you being so sweet with me?”

On a better day, it’d be a statement, an observation far less blunt and phrased far more delicately. The question, though, is the best he can do with what’s left of his right mind at the moment—and on a day where Jessie was feeling short-tempered, perhaps she _would_ find offense at the implication that she’s cold hearted. James doesn’t hear her tone grow hurt, though—doesn’t see the anger flare in her eyes despite everything.

“Chalk it up to sympathy, James,” she says. “Like I said earlier, I know better than anyone how rotten you feel right now.”

She moves her hands away from his scalp, wordlessly announcing to him that she’s finished with his hair. James takes the moment’s solace to curl forward against his knees, a feverish cheek pressed pathetically against one in an attempt to alleviate the feeling of concrete crackling to a firm harden in his head. An ugly-sounding volley of coughs follows, and Jessie waits for him to finish with her arms crossed. 

“Lean your head back, again,” Jessie says, in that ex-nurse voice that toes the line between domineering and tender. “Eyes on the ceiling.”

James complies with a curious blink, prying himself out of the tight little ball he’s curled into and tilting himself toward the cedar walls. Jessie palms the back of his head with one hand, uses the other to trace calloused fingertips down beneath his eyes, pushing soothing circles against his pulsing sinuses. She feels him puff out a hot breath and a restrained moan that screams silent euphoria as she works her magic, louder than any combination of words James could pull from his hazy head. 

“Alright, question for a question,” Jessie says, continuing the massage with a rhythm that makes James lose form. “Why on earth were you so stubborn about this?”

He closes his eyes, feeling that not having to look at her will balance out his courage. Every second feels like the moment Jessie’s supposed to finally snap and grow tired of him, and he wonders if her patience is truly real or the world blessing him with the kindest fever dream.

“I… didn’t want to drag us down, was all,” James tells her. “You were… _insistent_ that Meowth and I not let a case of the sniffles deter you from your goals, I just…”

He swallows. It feels like he’s blaming her, somehow.

“...wanted to follow your example.”

She stops her movements for a moment, and James’ anxious headspace fires off, telling him _this_ _is it, you ruined it._ He pulls his eyes open worriedly, only to see her running a hand along the water’s edge, looking distracted from his heartfelt monologue entirely. He settles.

“Water’s getting cold,” Jessie says. “Come on. You’re going back to bed.”

James blinks again, a gesture he’s found himself more and more acquainted with since him and Jessie have settled into their soft little routine of… _whatever_ this is. When the lights go out and the curtain falls, the venom seems to vanish from her voice, replaced by a softness he so rarely hears from her otherwise—like she’s half asleep under the stars, too tired to remember the menace she wears so beautifully.

Jessie disappears for a moment, struck with the sudden realization that so little time has passed, her robe’s still hanging out on the clothesline to dry. She’s back in a flurry and struggling to catch her breath, and it’s only when she tries to stifle a cough into the back of her wrist that James realizes with a pang she’s still not back to one-hundred herself. She throws the garment on the bathroom counter with a fluid swish, practically dumps the towel in her other arm on James with the clumsy sort of loving ferocity he’s much more used to from his partner.

There’s something _about_ cabin and hotel towels that classifies them a league softer than anything he remembers since leaving home, and the gesture is much less Jessie wrapping him up dotingly and far more James stealing it right from her hands like its his one true saviour. She rolls her eyes as he steps out of the tub and snaps out of it just as quick when he shivers fiercely, ducking down into the veil of it.

“I know, I know,” Jessie says, grabbing the robe off the counter and positioning it for him. “Suck it up for a second longer.”

Feeling too weak for words, James braves the chill of the room with a pathetic whine, putty in Jessie’s hands as she guides his arms into the rose-coloured fabric. He’s lost entirely in the heat of every touch, wanting more and more every second to let himself fall forward and lean on her forever, knowing she’ll hold him steady. It’s as she’s tying the sash that he notices there’s still colour painted on her cheeks, a fluster in her expression he can tell she’s desperately trying to ignore while she works her magic.

“There,” she says, wrapping his arm back around her shoulder. “I’ve got you, let’s go.”

The sentence is so simple, James can’t put words to why it sends tears to his throat. It’s one he knows she’s said a million times, a sentiment they share without even thinking, most days. _I’ve got you,_ he runs it over as she’s walking him back to the kotatsu, draping a thick comforter over his shoulders. _I’ve got you._ Somehow, it feels different, this time.

Jessie’s balanced on her knees as she peers into him, searching his form for anything she can do that she hasn’t already. _That look_ crosses James’ face again, and she ducks out of the line of fire as he muffles a round of thick sneezes into the covers. She’s back at his side in an instant with what’s left of the tissues, and gives up on handing him one just as quick when he sneezes again.

“You know what? Just take the whole box.”

It’s dropped on the table with a quiet _tap_ , and James is too frozen with exhaustion to break out of his trance and grab at it. He stays there for a moment—eyes half-lidded, covers drawn over his shoulders, long hair pulled forward and hiding his face in its protective little curtain. Jessie heaves a weary sigh—thick with… pity? Worry?—and reaches out to stroke the bare nape of his neck with all the tender ease she can muster. The tears come back the second James registers the contact, and this time he can’t stop them from falling, burying himself in the blankets entirely as he quietly trembles.

It’s _always_ too much, the way she holds him like no soul in his life ever has before. The way she always has, the way she always will. It’s a love he’d never known before her, his heart too inexperienced a chalice to properly contain. It overflows often, most days he can hold onto her and channel its song back into the source. Today, he’s far too weak to keep it all inside, overcome with so much else on top of the feeling of being hers.

Jessie notices at the first catch of his breath—fine tuned as ever, as if to make up for her lack of observance earlier—and immediately scrambles to find words, her finesse suddenly failing her.

“H-Hey, come on, now, what ever is the matter?”

His eyes are a dark forest when he drags his gaze toward her, and it’s not a question James has an answer for. He’s overwhelmed—with love, with stress, with worry, with guilt, with _everything_ —and the world around being humid and blurry, the sweltering ache that’s gotten hold of him has only pushed him past the threshold of keeping it in check any longer.

“I just don’t know…” he whimpers. “...what are we going to do?”

“Oh, you—” Jessie banks the flames at her throat for a moment, resisting the urge to toss him across the room for daring to feel guilty about this _still._ The frustration fizzles and dies somewhere within her, a silent pat on the back she gives herself for keeping her temper at bay. 

“You don’t need to worry about anything of the sort, right now,” she says.

“B-But—” James says, a mess in the darkness. “If we hadn’t f-forced you to—you... you wouldn’t have let this stop _you._ ”

The words come like a blighted dagger in Jessie’s heart, a stab of guilt on top of an already aggressive veil of it that’s been weighing her down all day. She doesn’t know how to _do_ this, so used to her emotions working their dark alchemy and transforming into anger before she can consent. Jessie regards the nasty coil in her insides with a bitter sort of confusion— _why does he make it so hard to be mean?_

She sighs again. She draws him closer. She grabs a tissue from the box atop the kotatsu, reaches out to cradle her partner’s face in her hands. His shaking subsides for a moment while he’s there in her palm, and she speaks with a voice that’s feather-light and patient while she wipes away the mess he’s made of himself. James looks to her with a reverence she’s seen a million times before, blinking the doe-eyed blink that skips her heart a beat every damn time. 

“It was one contest I couldn’t afford to miss,” Jessie says. “We’ve _plenty_ of time to pilfer that pesky pikachu.”

As if to punctuate, she traces her thumb across James’ jaw, moving her fingers up to gingerly tuck some of his still-damp hair behind his ears. It complies for a moment, one rogue strand settling back between his reddened eyes. She watches his lip quiver, eyes brightening while he struggles not to dissolve again. Jessie’s voice wavers alongside it, moving one hand back to a steady position on her hip.

“But hey, d-don’t scare me like that again, okay?!” she says, blushing more deeply now. “Next time just say something if you’re not feeling well!”

James sniffles unattractively, his voice high and waterlogged. “You’re really not mad?”

“Of course I’m not mad!” Jessie says with a playful lilt edging into her voice. “But you _are_ in trouble. As team leader, I’m well within my rights to discipline you!”

His voice returns to him slowly, albeit with a pronounced rasp. James tries to match her energy, metamorphosing his genuine tears into an overdramatic pout.

“Can’t we just agree how wretched I feel is discipline enough?”

“Ahaha! No.” She leans forward with a finger pressed against his chest. “Your punishment comes in two phases, James. Number one is a _full_ day’s bed rest. Perhaps even more if that fever’s not gone by the end of it.”

The two of them are broken out of the moment when the cabin door creaks back open, turning their heads perfectly in step as they so often did. Meowth barely takes note of the pair tangled up in one another, carefully balancing a white box in his paws as he kicks the door shut.

“Oh, hey,” the cat finally says, taking in the scene. “Check it out, Jimmy’s still alive.”

“Barely hanging on, but thank you for your concern,” James responds.

“He has the energy to be dramatic, so I think it’s safe to say he’s doing better,” Jessie says. “But we _are_ taking tomorrow off. Adorably charming nurse’s orders.”

“You didn’t graduate,” Meowth says with a sharp laugh.

“Are you _seriously_ attempting to argue against a holiday, Meowth?”

“Nah, just pickin’ up da snark slack so James ain’t gotta,” he says. “Move ovah.”

The pokémon shoves himself into their space with a typical feline grace, getting in between the both of his human companions and resting the box atop the kotatsu. His hard work done for the day, he settles into the heat of it, fighting to keep the purr from his voice as the heat washes away the elements still stuck on his fur.

“...what _is_ this, Meowth?” James asks, angling his head around the box like a curious serpent.

“Why dontcha ask ya _adorably charming nurse_.”

Jessie crosses her arms, eyeing the cat. “It’s part two of your punishment.”

The box is shoved toward him with a muted sort of ferocity that’s unique to Jessie and Jessie alone, and James is almost inclined to allow himself a pensive gulp as he opens it. Inside is a massive styrofoam bowl, steam leaking through its lid and carrying with it all manner of spices. It curls up toward James, and he wipes away the moisture it summons from his eyes.

“...for me?” he says, unsure despite everything.

“The spiciest noodles money can buy,” Jessie says proudly, practically stabbing him with the chopsticks as she hands them over. “Of the highest quality I can find in this backwater town. You’re to eat as much as you can stomach and _then_ some.”

James looks to her and Meowth with wildflowers blooming in his eyes, then back to the table, taking in the sight of the meal in front of him. The broth is red as a scizor’s backside, and while James’ palate is normally incredibly selective, there’s a special exception to be made when he can hardly taste a thing. Jessie had caught a glimpse of it once—long ago when they were kids and he’d had a wealth of stolen funds to pull from—the way James had slogged through every class, buried in a hoodie that cost more than his tuition, brightening up only after he’d completely devoured for lunch a bowl of what she was sure was ninety-percent hot sauce.

Jessie so rarely remembers much of anything. The tears come back to James, quieter this time.

“...since when do we have the money for something so utterly divine?” James says with an endearing sniffle.

He watches the colour return to Jessie’s cheeks, and Meowth shoots a fanged smirk in her direction as she crosses her arms and looks off to the side, shying away from both of their gazes.

“...since I decided the cash prize from Jessilina’s triumphant and glorious win is better off shared with the friends who made it a reality.”

There’s a waver in his heart James tries desperately not to succumb to, exhausted enough from the day’s events to spend any more time crying. Instead, he gives Meowth a hearty scratch behind the ears—met with a contented sigh—and smiles brightly at Jessie, teary eyes shut tight in bliss.

“Thank you both!” James beams past the ache soon to fade from his throat. “I’m… sorry for doubting you!”

Jessie pulls him into a tight hug, the same one she’d welcomed him and Meowth home with days before. There’s heat all around him, cradling him in its safety, and James wonders only for a moment why this single gesture is the warmest he’s felt all day. His partner breaks the embrace with her hands still resting on his shoulders, a smile on her face that seems to finally be at ease.

“We’ll call it even,” she says. “I’m sorry for coughing directly _on you_ for a solid twenty-four.”

Feeling as though the weight pressing down on him is finally lifted, James sandwiches himself deeper into the cozy little nest his friends have made him, cracking his chopsticks in two with a temperance his companions can’t help but view with hushed envy. Jessie swears she sees the colour return to him all at once the second he starts slurping, and as her partner’s vitality returns, her own wanes just as quickly. She squeaks out a yawn, dropping her head to James’ shoulder and shutting her eyes.

“Dat’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!” Meowth says with a stretch of his paws before flopping ungracefully onto his back. “If we’s gonna be stuck here anuddah day we’s might as well spend it catchin’ up on some well-desoihved shuteye.”

Jessie sinks to the floor and makes a poor attempt at burying herself under the kotatsu alongside Meowth, effectively having learned nothing. James is far too caught up in the euphoria of the noodly cleanse of sacred fire to _tsk_ at her, electing instead to make joyous little whimpers through every mouthful.

“I sincerely hope you don’t need anything else for a while,” Jessie says with another yawn, wrapping herself around Meowth as though he’s a stuffed toy. “I’m fading _dreadfully_ fast, here.”

James stops himself for a moment, thoughtfully pressing the empty chopsticks to his face. “Actually, Jessie, would you be a dear and go ahead with work as normal tomorrow? I’m sure my uniform will look positively _dazzling_ on you.”

He barely has time to finish the sentence before Meowth chokes out another cackle, punctuated by Jessie cracking an eye open and glaring a single sapphire dagger in James’ direction.

  
  


“Shut up and eat your noodles.”

**Author's Note:**

> i found out the other day there's an old wives' tale in japan that if you fall asleep under the kotatsu you'll catch a cold
> 
> can you believe we're getting canon meowth sickfic in like 3 days? nature is incredible


End file.
